Indian e-comm sector to hit $35 billion by 2019: Report

Festive sale season kicked off with a bang, states Nomura's reportPTI | October 27, 2015, 13:20 IST

Indian e-commerce sector's growth looks strong and is expected to reach $35 billion by 2019, says a report. "The growth of India e-commerce remains strong, tracking our expectations of reaching $35 billion by 2019," Nomura said in a research report.

The report, however, noted that the focus needs to move towards the roadmap to profitability, where "some progress is visible but a lot is still in the works."

It further said that there are areas where significant progress needs to be made and that include diversification of categories, less discounting, improved logistics and benign legislation like GST. On these fronts, there are "still works in progress and remain big areas of investment," the report said.

According to Nomura, the festive sale season kicked off with a bang for Indian e-commerce players, but still is lower in comparison with China and the US.

In China, Alibaba during its 'Singles Day' on November 11, 2014 sold goods worth $9 billion, while in the US, during Cyber Monday (Monday after Thanksgiving) and Black Friday, sales of around $3 billion each were recorded in 2014.

In comparison, the quarterly expectations for India's holiday sales are closer to $4 billion. Typically the festive season (October to December) accounts for about 35-40% of annual sales for the e-commerce firms.

According to Technopak, e-commerce in India recorded around $7 billion in annual sales in FY15, and is expected to generate about $10 billion in FY16, leading to sales expectations of around $4 billion for the e-commerce firms this festive season.